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My Two Cents' Worth
in The Discussion on Young
People and The Shoah
Father Michał Czajkowski
FORUM - ZNAK Christian Culture
Foundation
www.forum-znak.org.pl
The Shoah demonstrates
the result of years of propaganda, spreading prejudice
and hatred, years of racist indoctrination and centuries
of anti-Jewish religious indoctrination. It warns us
not to disregard first symptoms of the contagious diseases
of anti-Semitism, nationalism or xenophobia.
The matter cannot be waved aside
(by the Church or the laity) by saying it's a marginal
phenomenon, or they are hooligans. One cannot accept
a court ruling which says that public questioning of
Holocaust, or similar views and acts that desecrate
the memory of the dead and tear open the wounds of the
living, do negligible social harm. Suffering and evil
must not be subject to relativism. I can already envisage
a religion teacher quoting Dr.
Ratajczak, the brave and objective historian and
researcher at Opole University. Krzysztof Drzymalski
writes in his letter: When it comes to these matters,
there should be no revisionism. Evil is evil.
But we must also be aware of the fact that good and
evil can live side by side inside one man, as Marek
Edelman`s wife has recently reminded us. A brave and
dedicated member of the Polish underground army, an
intellectual and a Roman Catholic, betrayed Jewish children.
It is only too easy to put all the blame on the blackmailers.
And the peaceful coexistence of good and evil in one
man is also dangerous because we tend to notice only
the good side of man's heart while disregarding the
dark one. It is a bit like Radio Maryja, toutes les
proportions gardées, whose defenders say that most of
its broadcasting is good religious programs. They seem
to forget that one teaspoon of a bitter can spoil the
taste of a whole barrel of honey.
The important thing is that both the authors of the
contest questionnaire and the respondents have noticed
the universal message of the Shoah. On the one hand
it is unique; when it comes to ideology, goals, and
technology, nothing matches it. And this is what both
Christians and Jews agree on. However, on the other
hand, it has a universal and exemplary character. According
to Paul Ricoeur: 'To our memory, the victims of Auschwitz,
in a particular way, represent all the victims in history'.
Some Jews wrongly see this approach as an assault on
the uniqueness of the Shoah. Nobody wants to depreciate
it, to deny its uniqueness or its Jewishness. It is
like reading the Bible. The Bible is a unique book telling
the story of a particular people and just this people,
and yet all the sons of Abraham, Jewish or not, all
inquiring people, can find their own story there. In
the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul
II, we can read the following words (Conversation 16):
Auschwitz, the most significant symbol of the Holocaust
of the Jewish people, tells us how far a system built
on racial hatred and a nation's desire to rule can go.
Auschwitz still warns us. It says that anti-Semitism
is a great sin against mankind. It that says any kind
of hatred is a great sin against mankind since it leads
inevitably to the trampling of human dignity'. The Pope
perceives the uniqueness of the Shoah when he stresses
the words Holocaust of the Jewish people and anti-Semitism,
but he also talks about mankind and human dignity, nationalism
and the warning for today. Young respondents to the
questionnaire talk about Katyn, Kosovo and scores of
contemporary sites of horror. Krzys writes: victims
will always be victims.
How to convey the message to
young people?
One way is to provide them with a thorough knowledge
of those tragic events. To develop their sensitivity
to every kind of suffering, every wrong. Where the Shoah
is concerned, numbers are not enough; even if they are
millions, they will not speak: it is individual suffering
that must be shown. The fate of an individual, of a
family, will have more appeal than a generalization.
Young people should be given books containing individual
accounts of the war, diaries. This kind of literature
about individual fates made me sensitive to the Polish
war tragedy and to that of the Jews, which was even
greater. The idea is to make a Polish boy identify himself
with a Jewish boy in danger, and a Polish girl with
an abandoned Jewish girl...It was a boy and a girl like
you... Halina Birenbaum approaches young Israeli people
in this way: "And I said to myself: in a classroom
like the one they are now sitting in, lay deportees.
Ill, swollen from hunger, the living and the dead --
all of them together. And it used to be a school, and
now they are sitting in the classroom playing and learning,
but for those kids it was a place where they were put
to death, a place of death even before deportation.
...And I told them: I am no hero, I was a child like
you, or maybe even younger, when it all started... Young
people do not like museums. The Shoah must be deprived
of its museum-like qualities." This can be done
the way Halina Birenbaum does it in her meetings with
young people from various countries and through her
books. Another important thing are meetings with former
prisoners, since their numbers are growing smaller and
smaller -- as well as written records.
I am impressed by Halina Birenbaum's efforts (and the
efforts of others, such as Mr. Tov Ben-Zvi). Through
her dramatic fate, her suffering, her pain in solidarity
with those who perished, her modesty, courage and trust
in people, she makes us sensitive to evil but also to
good. After all, it is not only the suffering and evil
that must be shown. It is necessary to talk about humane
gestures by the perpetrators, the courage and selflessness
of their victims, the courage, sacrifice and sometimes
the heroism of the rescuers. Showing admirable figures
from the past gives the good a chance to exist today
and tomorrow.
And another thing: the role of religion lessons in the
countries where most young people attend them. Unfortunately,
there still occur instances of anti-Semitism. It is
sad but also comforting to hear that some people drop
out of class because the priest gives vent to his anti-Semitic
or political phobias (it is comforting to realize that
the young people are so mature and sensitive). Religion
teachers (both lay people and clergy alike) feel accountable
to no one: inspection by the Church authorities is a
fiction, and the headmaster does not interfere in religious
matters. If the teacher questioned a dogma, he would
be quickly dismissed by the bishop. And yet the bishop
fails to see that anti-Semitism strikes directly at
the dogma of Incarnation whose Great Jubilee we are
celebrating with so much pomp. We have good curricula
and our catechisms have been purged of anti-Jewish elements,
but it is much more difficult to purge the minds and
hearts of the teachers (there are also some great religion
teachers, even philo-Semites). But it is not enough
to make sure that there are no anti-Jewish religion
lessons. Religion lessons should show deep religious
ties between the two religions. This is what the Holy
See requires in its documents. But who cares in Poland?
How many religion teachers have heard about them? And
yet -- moving from the theological field to that of
ethics -- an encounter of young people with Jesus the
Jew and His Jewish Mother will help them encounter their
Jewish peers as neighbors and friends.
How can we foster cooperation between young people of
various nationalities, outlooks or cultures?
Meetings, especially the personal
ones, are very important. Much prejudice and fear disappears
when man meets man, particularly when a young man meets
his peer. According to Kasia
Polańska, People are afraid of strangeness, mainly
because they don't know it or realize that it can, in
a way, be superior.
Xenos in Greek means stranger and phobos means fear;
therefore xenophobia means a fear of strangers that
I try to overcome by means of contempt or hatred. When
Jesus says: I was a stranger (xenos emen)and ye took
me not in (Mt 25,43), He becomes the recipient of our
xenophobia in his brothers and sisters whom we have
scorned. Strangeness intrigues and fascinates, and these
natural feelings should be used not to make it repulsive
and frightening, but rather to make it attractive and
enriching. Strangeness, otherness, and difference can
be more enriching than familiarity.
When meetings between human beings are real, strangeness
disappears as a barrier and becomes the quality of being
different, which is enriching. Barriers between young
Poles and Israelis (or young Jews from other countries)
will not disappear if the Israelis are only driven around
Jewish cemeteries seeing-through the bus window -- anti-Semitic
graffiti on the walls and half-wits spitting in their
direction.
For years, we have been striving to arrange meetings
between young people of the two nations, and things
are finally beginning to change. However, we must try
to change the form of such meetings. I was told by the
headmistress of the secondary school where I had talks
on Christian-Judaic topics how ashamed she felt when
she saw that the bus, carrying young Israelis who had
been invited to a meeting with young Polish students,
pulling up at the school entrance ostentatiously guarded
by uniformed men. Can't the security people be more
discreet, more intelligent, and wear plain clothes?
Many years ago, I suggested that the synagogue should
be guarded by plainclothes policemen who would be unseen
and yet efficient at catching the teenagers that defaced
its walls. But it turns out that the guards must be
uniformed policemen in order to demonstrate to the world
that the synagogue is in danger day and night from the
surrounding community. And yet the grim-looking policemen
did not prevent the fire being set to the tent (Sukkot)
or the synagogue itself (by the main door).
Meetings in schools are fine, although the most beneficial
are the individual meetings from which friendships start.
But there should also be meetings in homes and families.
To quote Krzyś again: The point is not to interfere
with someone's life, but to realize the importance of
common family meetings, shared work and play. The unity
of our society manifests itself during events such as
the Great Orchestra of Holiday Aid, the tragic experience
of floods, or papal visits. And common prayer when possible.
Suffice it to mention the European Meeting of Young
People in Warsaw at the beginning of the Great Jubilee.
In the end, it turned out that the number of families
willing to put up young people exceeded the demand for
accommodation. 'Mass' meetings make sense if they give
rise to personal encounters. During communist times
I used to be a parish priest in Zgorzelec-Ujazd, a town
on the border of Poland and the DDR. In those days,
schools organized meetings of young people from both
countries. They were centrally-planned political and
propaganda events. They ended up with young Poles and
Germans playing practical jokes on each other. When
our Roman Catholic parish and a German Evangelical parish
from the central DDR arranged meetings of young people,
there were common ecumenical services, conferences,
bonfires, and dances, but the young people lived with
families. Hostility and strangeness disappeared, giving
way to reconciliation, amicability, friendship, and
even love.
The results of Prime Minister Buzek`s visit to Israel
are important. They include the abolition of visas,
the expansion of youth exchange programs, taking mutual
responsibility for educating young people in both countries
so that they learn about contemporary life in Poland
and Israel as well as about the past. This means changes
in the education program about the Shoah. Ania Miszewska
(age 15, Więź) writes: This year I took part in the
March of the Living. It was the first time I had seen
so many young Jews. They were people like me and my
friends. I wanted to talk to them but I was stopped
by the question: What will happen if they know as little
about Polish people as we know about them? What will
happen if the only knowledge they have about us is that
they were murdered in Poland? I was afraid to ask.
I see more clearly the possibility of cooperation between
adult Christians and Jews. Meetings of young people
are just the first stage. It is the necessary ground
for cooperation. What can it be like? I count on various
institutions for ideas (the Holy Spirit can act even
in institutions, when there are people of good will
who care). But first of all, I rely on the imagination
and inspiration of young people themselves. I believe
that they have some surprises in store for us, those
nice kinds of surprises.
Father Michał Czajkowski - Professor
at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Warsaw, member
of Polish Council of Christians and Jews.
NOTES:
Ratajczak Dariusz - a historian at the University of
Opole, was charged under the Polish National Memorial
Institute Law with denying the Holocaust after publishing
and offering for sale 350 copies of a book on "Dangerous
Subjects in History" and containing, in one of
its chapters, a recapitulation of "revisionist"
views. The charges were dismissed because the court
ruled that Ratajczak's act was "of negligible social
injuriousness." Public prosecutor appealed to a
higher tribunal.
The disciplinary committee of
the Opole University decided to dismiss Dariusz Ratajczak
with additional provision that he be prohibited to work
as a teacher for three years. (back)
Blackmailers or "bounty
hunters," (pol. - szmalcownicy) - Polish civilians
who extorted money from Jews attempting to survive "on
the Aryan side" during the German occupation; the
extortion often ended when the blackmailers betrayed
their victims to the German police in hopes of receiving
further payment. (back)
Radio Maryja - an "independent
Catholic" radio station with headquarters in Torun,
espousing a nationalistic standpoint and notorious for
anti-Semitic statements made by its commentators and
by callers to its talk shows. (back)
European Meeting of Young
People (pol. - Europejskie Spotkania Mlodych) - The
annual Christmastide gathering of young people from
all over Europe, organized by the ecumenical Taize movement.
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